The female rockstar is still something of a rarity.
Even though there are more women playing rock instruments than ever, virtually no females feature prominently in the mainstream rock world right now who do more than sing.
Joan Jett and Heart lead the way decades ago and Meg White, the drummer of White Stripes success, kept the idea alive until a few years ago. But it still seems like the only way for a woman to have any mainstream success in the rock world is to be a singer.
Laurie Stewart is trying to break that mould. The 31-year-old Ottawa drummer of The Ecstatic has been playing since she was 11. By the time she was in high school, she was playing in a band.
Even though her band was nothing serious to her at the time, it got her involved in the scene that would change her life.
“By the time I was 16 I was already sneaking into bars just to see who was playing,” Stewart said. “I got to meet these bands and they inspired me.”
It was around that time Stewart started her first serious band—an all-girl three-piece called Bitch Got Slapped. The band gelled quickly and soon decided to “screw covers” and try originals.
But the band didn’t reach much traction until the night they were approached by a movie director.
“We were leaving a gig one night and got hired right away, but we obviously had to change our name,” she said. “We landed on Apocalypstic. It sounded cheesy but it stuck.”
Their success meant new members and a tour. Stewart was about to live the rockstar dream—or so she thought.
“You always imagine touring as this glamorous thing, but when you’re starting out it’s far from it,” she said. “The biggest show we played on that whole tour was 20 people . . . We were paying more to get to the shows than we would make, but the whole ordeal solidified us as a band.”
The band’s defining moment came, she said, when a Canadian radio host called her up and told her their music was “the best no-name band they had heard” and soon calls from EMI, Interscope, and Hollywood Records renewed her faith.
“The advice and confidence these people gave me is what keeps me going” she said. “The calls have come even after our change-up.”
That change-up came in the form of a rift in the band.
Stewart said there was tension after the focus shifted from the music to the money. After they came fourth in the local Big Money Shot competition most of her band mates were upset, but Stewart was proud.
“I just want to make music and if we’re doing that well who really cares,” she said.
This is what caused her to meet up with her singer, Jenna Taggart, and start anew with The Ecstatic.
She also added some male members to limit the tension, saying that “the gimmick just wouldn’t work anymore and I wanted to move on from the all-girl image.”
And it seems the new group is a solid one. When Stewart had to have surgery, which took her out of the game for four months, the band supported her.
“Most bands would’ve replaced me by then or would’ve at least lost most of the steam we’d had before the break,”she said.
Instead, the band is set for big things in the next year.
“We just played our biggest show yet with Hollerado and Tokyo Police club and we have tour plans for the United Kingdom and Japan in the works, a possible Degrassi theme, and we’re already working on our next album,” she said.
With those plans under her belt, Stewart is set to prove that the female rockstar is still a force to be reckoned with.
